American Stocks Fall In Biggest Beginning-of-Year Sell-Off in Ten Years, After China's Shanghai Markets Plunge 7% In One Day

The Shanghai market fell nearly 7% Monday on the first trading day of the year, its worst day since the height of last summerís market crash. The selloff triggered circuit-breakers on their first day in effect, shutting down the market in the early afternoon.

The most obvious factor behind the selloff was a private index of manufacturing activity in China, which showed that business had slowed for the 10th consecutive month for the countryís steelmakers, shipbuilders and other industries.

After falling 470, the Dow Jones recovered a bit to finish down only 276.

China's apparently continuing to slide into a recession, and that seems to be hurting the global economy.

Which is already weak, despite what Obama and his media bobby-soxers say.

Meanwhile, a new Pew study finds that the middle class is being "hollowed out," -- some are becoming rich, more are becoming poor, and the vital, stabilizing force that is the middle class is shrinking.

In 1971, about 61 percent of adults lived in middle-income households (defined as three-person households with incomes from $41,869 to $125,608 in todayís dollars). By 2014, that share had dropped to 50 percent. Meanwhile, the share of low-income households (households with incomes of $41,868 or less) grew from 25 percent to 29 percent, and the share of upper-income households (incomes above $125,608) increased from 14 percent to 21 percent.

But the study convincingly rebuts the notion that the living standards of most Americans had stagnated for many decades. Pew calculated household incomes, adjusted for inflation, all along the economic spectrum and found that, until the early 2000s, most households reaped slow but steady increases. Growing inequality did not siphon off all gains for those who are not rich...

Maybe not, but middle classes wages have been stuck for a long while, since the "early 2000s."

At least Bush had the 9/11 disaster to explain the economy.

Whatever we do we need to elect Hillary Clinton president, to continue Obama's bang-bang success on the foreign and domestic fronts. That's all I know.